


a scar (or three or four)

by My_Beautiful_Idiot



Category: The Hour
Genre: F/M, Post 2X06, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-08
Updated: 2013-10-08
Packaged: 2017-12-28 20:50:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Beautiful_Idiot/pseuds/My_Beautiful_Idiot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after Freddie's attack he's all healed up (see? can't see nothin'). Except Freddie still has the scars, mental and physical. (Post 2x06)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a scar (or three or four)

**Author's Note:**

> so at the beginning of last year i was going a 100 day prompt challenge on a facebook group i was on. this was one of the works i wrote. with a little editing and adding new bits we have my first fanfic in months. it's, unfortunately, the only one i saved, as the group was deleted in about march/april and i forgot about all them stories i wrote. lost forever...  
> however, we have this one, and i can always write new stories- right?  
> enjoy! sorry if the grammar isnt perfect- if you notice any thing that needs fixing just let me know!

He can’t look at himself in the mirror any more. 

Not that he could for long before the attack, but now he flinches whenever he catches a glimpse of his face. Ugly scars cover him head to toe. 

Sometimes, when he’s in the shower and is forced to look down upon himself, flashes of that night come flooding back to him and suddenly he can’t breathe. He closes his eyes and the flashbacks return in the first punch. He can feel the blood running down his skin once more and the pain attacks him in waves. The fists upon his body, bruising his skin; cutting it; breaking his bones; and he knows that this is the end, that he’s not going to survive this. His legs give out and he slumps down into the tub, crying out for Bel, for his Bel, his beautiful Moneypenny. The water runs down his face but he doesn’t feel it anymore; he doesn’t see the bathroom anymore.

He’s back in that dark, dank back room with the peeling wallpaper and more fear than he’d ever felt in his life. His vision is in that blurred state and his head pounds as if his brain is trying to explode out of his skull. He screams and cries out again, begging for someone to help him, but Mr. Pike and Trevor are just standing there, laughing at him. He begs Cilenti to stop, to let him go, but he won’t listen. He closes his eyes, covers his face with his hands and the beats seem to bleed together, spiralling him down into darkness-

Hands on his face, desperately scrambling; a voice calling to him from so far away:

"Freddie, Freddie!"

He opens his eyes, gasping in air. He’s back in the bathroom again and the water is still spilling down his face, and there, in front of him, is Bel. Beautiful, magnificent Bel; face full of worry and anguish. His shining light of hope. 

"It’s me, it’s Bel. I’m right here."

His trembling hands reach out and touch her face. Real. She was real. He wasn’t back in that room, he was in her bathroom, curled up in a ball at the bottom of the bath. She sits with him there for a while, water still falling on them both. Her work clothes get soaked. She doesn’t mind.

She helps him out of the bath and gets him his dressing gown and soon they’re cuddled together on her sofa, Freddie as close to her as he could be. She’s tracing the scars on his face with her finger. For some reason it soothes him. Perhaps it’s just the touch of her skin on his. There’s one on the side of his face that she likes to trace the most; it’s a near-perfect spiral of sorts near his right eyebrow. 

"Promise me something, Bel," he says, suddenly, after a long time sitting in silence.

"Anything," she replies.

"Don’t give up on me." She smiles a little, bends down and kisses him gently on that scar.

"Never, James. Never."


End file.
